Theatre and film ‘treasure trove’
Allan Webb is not your typical philanthropist. When pressed on why exactly he is giving up the movie theatre he has owned and run for the past 48 years, he references a myriad of recent health problems and makes no secret of his age.
Yet, sitting at his desk in the narrow office space adjacent to The Regent’s box office and confectionery counter, he still looks and sounds every inch the man in charge. Thin, well-dressed, given to easy laughter, anecdotes from six decades in the movie industry flow easily.
Casual acquaintances might only catch the querulous, nononsense side of Allan, he who long ago posted a set of rules and expectations for customers next to the ticket counter and who brooks no compromise when it comes to civil behaviour, but gentler currents flow underneath. Along with the resolve and the intelligence and the undimmed memory is a love of the movies and a love of people.
I travelled to Te Awamutu to chat to Allan about his decision to gift The Regent to a charitable trust.
The importance of this donation to the town and the greater Waikato cannot be underestimated.
The Regent is, unarguably, the most beautiful and beautifully maintained theatre in the region, a once dilapidated single-screen flea pit transformed into a five-screen treasure trove through Allan’s unfailing commitment to the seventh art.
Every inch of wall and ceiling space is a celebration of film history, festooned with posters, lobby cards, promotional material and bric-a-brac.
In dark corners sit chairs from long defunct rival theatres, captured booty from the opposition as it were, though also a testament to the owner’s long association with Waikato film exhibition and vast knowledge of same.
When Allan Webb claims that The Regent is the longest continually running movie theatre in the country, few would have the courage to contest the point. Aside from having skin in the game, he is an amateur historian, having compiled immense dossiers about
Auckland and Waikato theatres that grace libraries around New Zealand. To listen to his stories is to recall so many different eras, from the pre-television boom times of the late 1950s and early to mid 1960s, when he owned a string of cinemas, to the fierce competition of the mid to late 1970s, when he faced off against Te Awamatu’s original theatre, the Empire, to the challenges posed in the 1980s with the coming of video tape and 1990s with the rise of multiplexes.
Film programming and distribution were ever issues. Favouritism shown to Hamilton theatres always threatened to undermine business in Te Awamutu. With some horror, Allan recalls the problems with obtaining a print of Dirty Dancing, the 1988 smash hit.
Baby did not get out of her corner and onto State Highway 3 until seven weeks after first opening in the big city. Every one of those weeks, Allan took out a newspaper advertisement announcing the impending arrival of Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey.
‘‘People thought I was a liar’’, he says, the blow to his personal integrity still smarting.
Reputation is important to Allan. By his unusually precise calculation, it took him 17 years to win the trust of the people of Te Awamutu. When he assumed management of The Regent in 1974, it was like something out of the wild west. Bees, rats and mice infested the theatre and the behaviour of many of the patrons wasn’t much better. If the Empire would countenance all manner of bodily and procreative practices on their premises, Allan would have none of it. On one occasion he ejected every single person in the stalls. Fifty locals were blacklisted outright.
In the long term the strategy paid off. Audiences appreciated a clean space where films could be enjoyed without disruption.
They also came to value the opinions of a man who got to know them personally, discern their individual tastes and could advise accordingly. In today’s corporate environment, such customer service is unheard of, particularly in multiplexes staffed by minimum wage teenagers whose knowledge of cinema seldom stretches beyond the latest Marvel release.
For those with an appreciation of the theatre and first-hand knowledge of Allan’s situation, the future of The Regent has been a source of anxiety. To say that a cinema which opened back in 1932 and has closed only in accordance with Covid-related government mandates is irreplaceable is an understatement. The Waikato has otherwise had an appalling record in sustaining its theatres.
In Hamilton, the cultural crime is compounded by our habit of demolishing the buildings themselves. The Civic, The Embassy, Hamilton’s own The
Regent and Victoria Cinema were all bulldozed, with The Carlton suffering a fate worse than death: transformation into a church.
No one is more aware of this history than Allan himself. It should have come as no surprise then that he himself took the initiative to secure his legacy. Whilst he did briefly entertain a cash offer from overseas, ultimately the idea of a trust, which arose out of discussions with a local politician, made more sense.
Allan does not dwell on the philanthropic aspect of his donation, but not everyone gives away over a million dollars worth of assets. For him, the priority was keeping The Regent open. He is surprisingly comfortable about new management potentially taking the business in fresh directions, only reserving the right to any profits taken from the sale of his historic posters. Let us hope none of these ever leave the premises.
When pressed as to the future of cinema-going, a social experience some have been quick to pronounce dead or dying, Allan replies that ‘‘people will always want to go out’’.
The businessman in him identifies the economic benefits to the community of communal gathering, before conceding that ‘‘it’s good for kids to grow up in a theatre’’. Thanks to Allan Webb, generations of Te Awamutu’s children – and adults – have enjoyed that pleasure. With the trust in place, so will generations to come.